Space Needle wants to send a person into orbit

Originally published August 1, 2011 at 2:53 am

Updated August 1, 2011 at 10:51 pm

Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin talks to the press at the base of the Space Needle helping promote the contest, Space Race 2012 which will give away a sub-orbital space trip as part of the Space Needle’s 50th anniversary.

“We went back to 1962 and questioned why the Space Needle was built,” said Ron Sevart, President and CEO of the Pacific Northwest landmark. “It was an optimistic time, a forward-looking time, right in the middle of the space race.”

The Space Needle – with its hourglass tower and a top that resembles a flying saucer – embodied the era.

Inspired, Sevart and his team decided to create a multi-tiered contest to send a member of the public into orbit using a company from the burgeoning private space travel industry.

“The private business of taking people to space is right in front of us, it felt so natural for us to build a contest around that,” Sevart said.

To help celebrate the future of space travel, the Space Needle is bringing one of its pioneers.

Buzz Aldrin, the second astronaut to step on the moon, is expected at Monday’s formal contest announcement. He will be joined by Sevart; Eric Anderson, chairman of Space Adventures, a Virginia-based private space travel company; and Richard Garriott, one of a handful of private citizens who have spent time on the International Space Station.

“It’s an opportunity for the average person have chance to do something very few people have ever done,” said Anderson, whose company has sent seven people to space, hitching rides on Russian rockets.

The winning trip to space would be a suborbital shot, with about 6 minutes of zero gravity, Garriott said. The details will come later. Space Adventure is still developing the vessels that will be used for the excursions. The cost for the grand prize is about $110,000.

“The most impressive takeaway that I had on the International Space Station was seeing Earth from space, it was truly life changing,” said Garriott, a computer engineer who has invested in private space travel, and spent 12 days circling Earth.

The contest – dubbed Space Race 2012 – will have several stages. First, anyone can sign up to enter at the Space Needle’s website starting Monday through December. Sevart is expecting millions of entries. From there, a computer will randomly choose 1,000 people. The chosen entries will then be asked to submit a 1-minute video. Following the video, the public, via a vote, will twiddle down the number of contestants.

A fitness challenge will be set up for the top vote-getters, and to conclude, a panel will make the final selection.

The winner will be announced in April 2012, right at the 50th birthday of the Space Needle’s opening.

While Sevart is encouraging everyone to submit entries, he said “space travel might not be for everyone,” adding that the person needs to be “both mentally and physical prepared for it.”

The Space Needle was built in 1961 as the nation was in the midst of a space race with the Soviet Union. The tower was the marquee showing at the 1962 World’s Fair, which featured exhibits of that era’s version of the future.

Fifty years later and the U.S. is stepping forward into a new episode in space travel. The last space shuttle to rocket to orbit landed permanently almost two weeks ago. NASA is now looking to private contractors to send astronauts to the ISS while it focuses on deeper space travel.

For Garriott, whose father was an astronaut, a contest like the Space Needle’s is another step at making space travel more affordable, within reach of the public. He envisions that soon a trip to the orbit will cost as much as an around-the-world space ticket.

“I think that the biggest thing that people take away from this event, is that people’s excitement about space should be reinvigorated,” he said. “We’re about to enter the barnstorming era of space. It’s not just going to be the U.S. or Russian government sending people to space, it’s going to be private individuals.”